


Cops & Robbers

by rose_selavy



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Canon Era, Canon Related, Gen, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 05:45:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4379540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_selavy/pseuds/rose_selavy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter training camp has started. Riko's dad, Kagetora, has an unorthodox method for conditioning the members of Seirin: a game of Cops & Robbers in the mountains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cops & Robbers

**Author's Note:**

> I changed some minor details but otherwise tried to be as canon as possible. Note that janken is paper-rock-scissors. Please enjoy! I had lot of fun researching and writing this. Also know that I absolutely welcome any feedback or questions. (http://rose-selavy.tumblr.com/)

“Split into two groups. Go play cops and robbers in those mountains for about three hours. Afterward, the losers will practice footwork. I’ll let you off with double practice,” Kagetora uttered with an air of indifference (very much contradicting the way he spoke to Riko, which was frighteningly bubbly to say the least).

Some groans mixed with Koganei’s delighted exclamation of “All right! Cops and robbers!“ (which was immediately followed with an irritated mutter of “shut up” from Hyuuga) echoed in the gym. Kuroko peered over Izuki’s shoulder to study Riko’s expression, unfazed by the grueling practice that loomed ahead. He was more concerned with where Kagami was and she seemed to know. “I’ll explain later,” she had stated a few hours prior.

_I really wish you’d tell us now_ , Kuroko thought somewhat troubled, though his expression didn’t indicate this in the slightest.

* * *

Earlier that morning, after going through his morning routine which solely consisted of getting dressed and brushing his teeth, Kuroko went to rouse Kagami from bed (or futon rather) but he was nowhere to be found. Kuroko checked the restrooms, the various rooms at the inn, the indoor baths, the outdoor hot springs, and the kitchen (no one seemed to notice that a guest had wandered into the staff only area—but if Kagami  _was_ anywhere, Kuroko reasoned, he was likely to be where food was prepared and/or served).

As the rest of the team gathered to head out after their respite at the inn, Kuroko chimed in with a quiet, “Excuse me…Kagami-kun’s been missing since this morning.”

“Your bed head is ridiculous!” Hyuuga blurted out, his eyes fixated on the light blue tresses that pointed every which way. _Ah right—_ Kuroko hadn’t matted down his hair yet, caught up in the search for Kagami.

“Kagami’s missing?” Tsuchida turned around to ask.

Riko spoke up immediately, “It’s fine. Starting today, we’ll be practicing without Kagami-kun for a while. I’ll explain later.”

Kuroko sensed there was no cause for alarm but he still was taken aback. Kagami hadn’t mentioned anything to him after all.

* * *

“Split into two groups!” Hyuuga repeated as Riko and Kagetora stepped out into the hall to presumably discuss matters of training regimens.

All of Seirin blinked at one another, not quite sure how to decide who goes where.

“Idiots! You’re hopeless.” He harrumphed and tilted his head to the side to give his neck a stretch.

“How about first years versus second years?” Izuki suggested.

“Let’s change it up! Besides…huhu,” Koganei said in a sly manner, eyes narrowing, “I wouldn’t want us to completely destroy the first years.”

“Please don’t underestimate us first years,” a small voice said from the back. Kuroko’s expression was one of conviction. He hadn’t forgotten his concern regarding Kagami’s whereabouts, but he wasn’t going to let that statement stand.

“Koganei is just challenging you like the good senpai he is.” Kiyoshi remarked cheerfully, his large hand patting Kuroko on the head, much to the chagrin of the first year.

Mitobe shifted his stance and seemed to just blink as Koganei nodded enthusiastically in agreement. “Mitobe suggests we play janken to decide; losers are robbers.”

They quickly assembled, huddling in a circle for group janken. Hyuuga cleared his throat to indicate the game was about to begin. “Janken pon!”

Kuroko threw out rock and scanned the rest of his teammates’ choices.

“What is that supposed to be, Izuki-senpai?” Furihata inquired.

Kuroko looked at Izuki’s extended arm; his pinky and index finger were outstretched, the remaining digits folded down into his palm.

“It’s rock…” Izuki raised his hand up and stuck his tongue out, clearly amused with himself. “Rock on.”

A collective groan reverberated through the gym as Kiyoshi held onto Hyuuga by the shirt—whose hands were grasping for what looked like Izuki’s neck.

They all felt a sudden chill rush through the air as Riko entered the gym, her eyes darkened. Through gritted teeth she sternly said, “If you have time for kids’ games, then perhaps the consequence for losing is not severe enough.”

Kuroko was rather amused by this since they were playing a kids’ game to play another kids’ game. Everyone all but fell over at Riko’s threat—and they played the fastest game of rock-paper-scissors Kuroko had ever witnessed.

* * *

Seirin gathered outside at the foot of a craggy hill. Hyuuga, Kiyoshi, Tsuchida, Kawahara, and Koganei stood facing Kuroko, Izuki, Furihata, Fukuda, and Mitobe: the former group being cops and the latter, robbers.

“Aw man, you guys have eagle eye.” Koganei lamented.

“Watch out—Team Robbers will rob you of victory!” Seirin’s point guard proclaimed.

“Izuki,” Hyuuga started with a growl, “I will hunt you DOWN!” He gestured with his thumb a slicing motion around his neck. He sucked his teeth in annoyance and scratched the back of his head with closed eyes in an attempt compose himself.

“Anyway, this giant rock here is jail,” Hyuuga explained, agitation still discernible in his voice.

“Jailhouse roc—“ Izuki’s Elvis impression was abruptly interrupted by an elbow to the rib from one peevish captain.

“AS I WAS SAYING,” Hyuuga jumped onto the rock for some elevation, “This is jail. You have one minute to run away, then we’ll try to catch you. If we tag you, you have to go to jail here. You can break a jailed robber out…if you can manage it. We will switch teams if all the robbers are caught and so on. We have three hours! Any questions?”

Kuroko raised his hand as he spoke, “What is considered a win?”

Hyuuga adjusted his glasses with one hand, the other firmly on his hip, “If you catch all the robbers as cops, your team wins a point.”

Fukuda also raised his hand and noted, “But you guys are starting out as cops…don’t you have the advantage?”

Hyuuga’s brow twitched. Kuroko suspected he was restraining himself from ranting about the first years’ subversion and lack of respect. He tilted his head back, a slight glare appearing on his glasses. “That’s one of the reasons…we played janken…in the first place…”

This was Izuki’s cue; he was quite adept at figuring out these sorts of things as the vice captain, supporting Hyuuga’s, let’s just say, commanding presence. “We have three hours. Four rounds, 45 minutes each. We’ll tally how many robbers are in jail at the end of the rounds and that’s how many points are awarded to the cops’ team. The roles will alternate each round, so each team has a chance to play as cops twice to score points. The robbers can limit how many points the opposing team gets by breaking their teammates out of jail, or avoiding capture altogether.”

With a hesitant cadence, Furihata asked, “But what if there’s a tie?”

“If that happens we’ll sort it out,” Kiyoshi commented, “Let’s enjoy ourselves and this clean winter air!” He inhaled deeply, and then exhaled with contentment, his breath visible.

Hyuuga studied the faces of both groups before him; thankfully, they appeared placated by Kiyoshi’s typical words of wisdom.

Straightening up, Hyuuga shouted, “Are we READY?”

A chorus of “yeah!” rang out.

“Please wait a moment.” Kuroko requested politely. He bent down to tie his shoelaces securely as his teammates looked on, their enthusiasm momentarily on pause. “Ok I’m ready.” He said, standing, with a determined glint in his eyes.

“Ok! READY?” Hyuuga shot a glare at Kuroko, who nodded signifying he was, in fact, ready now. “All right, GO! MOVE YOUR ASSES!  1…2…3…”

The team of robbers rushed towards the woods, autumn leaves crunching beneath their sneakers. Kuroko noticed the rugged terrain and how the incline became increasingly steep, and the trees became more densely packed the further they went. He was also quite glad he made sure his shoelaces were tied properly. They were jogging alongside one another when Fukuda asked, “So uh, do we have a plan?”

“I was just going to get as far away as possible,” Furihata replied.

Mitobe looked at Kuroko, furrowing his brow.

“I agree, we should have some sort of strategy,” Kuroko said, noting the count was at 20 now.

Izuki spoke up, “Let’s try to stay in pairs and have the extra person alternate between. We want to divide the other team so they can’t easily gang up on us.”

Everyone’s attention turned to Kuroko at the mention of the “extra person.” Kuroko accepted this. He was, after all, best suited to be a scout.

A booming “FIFTY!” thundered from their point of origin.

“We can also hide behind trees,” Furihata interjected suddenly, a little paler in the face, visibly startled by Hyuuga’s warning count.

They continued to jog at a sensible pace, not wanting to deplete their stamina before the game had even really started. Kuroko noticed the woods were serenely quiet, making every crunch, thud, patter, and breathy exhale all the more palpable.

“SIXTY!”

* * *

 “Wait up you jerks!” Hyuuga roared, causing a flock of birds to scatter to the sky.

“Scary~” Koganei said with a wince, removing his hands from his ears, having anticipated the intimidating bellow from Seirin’s captain.

Kiyoshi couldn’t suppress the look of extreme giddiness on his face—the expression often accompanied by a good-natured, “Let’s have some fun!”

“Don’t you think having Kuroko and Izuki-senpai on the same team is a little…overpowered?” Kawahara asked.

“Hey hey! We have my catlike reflexes!” Koganei declared, narrowly missing a tree root which caused him to stumble a little.

His teammates expressions dropped, a chorus of unimpressed voices responded with, “Yeah…catlike reflexes.”

“Tch, thanks for your vote of confidence GUYS.” Koganei said with a pout as Tsuchida patted him on the back reassuringly.

* * *

Kuroko moved a branch out of the way, stepping over a half-decomposed log. He crouched down, just in line of sight of his group. Mitobe and Izuki were twenty yards to his left, and Furihata and Fukuda were about the same distance away in the opposite direction. Kuroko pointed to the east, and the other four nodded in acknowledgment. He could hear the other team of cops advance upon them since the cold air carried sound further, though mostly because Hyuuga was yelling at Koganei to shut up and not give away their positions, followed by a laugh from Kiyoshi pointing out that he was the loudest among them.

Smiling in his subtle way, Kuroko reflected upon how his teammates were such characters…each one of them with their own unique set of idiosyncrasies that just tickled him when they occurred—and occur they did with clockwork reliability. Hyuuga would yell, Kiyoshi would impart sage-like advice, Mitobe—by slightly changing the angle of his brows—would communicate an entire dissertation on why you should be careful (and not once open his mouth), Koganei would speak at a volume for two, the other first years would say something in unison (in awe, terror, or a mix of both), Izuki’s eyes would light up as another witticism dawned upon him, Hyuuga would yell, rinse, repeat, throw in Kagami’s bewildered remarks—“Why would you say that?!” and “What’s with your expression?!” Actually, Kuroko kind of wished Kagami was here.

Kuroko’s train of thought came to a halt at the sound of rustling nearby, heading in Furihata and Fukuda’s direction. _How sneaky_ , he thought, as Kuroko came to the realization that Kawahara and Tsuchida moved ahead of the rest of the team of cops. _So they were being loud on purpose to distract us._ Kuroko gestured towards this duo, alerting his fellow first years. But just as his own group took notice, Kawahara and Tsuchida spotted them as well and quickened their pace in pursuit.

Furihata broke into a run, drawing the attention of the other three cops further back. Fukuda followed suit. As expected, no one had discovered Kuroko yet. Izuki watched as this played out, making sure to keep his distance but still keep tabs on his team in case they needed help.

As the three second years from Team Cops made it to a clearing, Koganei suddenly perked up. “Hey! I think the rest are over here!” He said pointing in the general direction of Mitobe and Izuki, who remained concealed.

Izuki tilted his head and mouthed, “How…?” to Mitobe, who simply shrugged.

“I’m not going for one of your random hunches,” Hyuuga replied dismissively.

“But there’s a chance I’m right! 50/50, y’know.”

“There are more directions than left and right in this situation, Koga. And this is our opportunity to capture the two Tsuchida and Kawahara spotted.”

“But…I’ve got a feeling!”

Kiyoshi chimed in, “It can’t hurt to give it a try. The other two are pursuing them already so they’ve got it covered. If we check over here, we’ll rule out that possibility; then we can assist the rest of our team.”

“Fine fine!” Hyuuga threw his hands up, yielding to the will of the rest of the group to investigate, the only evidence being Koganei’s so-called “instincts.”

_Koganei-senpai is actually perceptive_ , Kuroko noted.

“Look, I can see some shoe prints in the mud here.” Koganei pointed, squatting to examine them more closely. “Well well, what have we here…that pattern is from Mitobe’s shoe!” He beamed, as if he was some kind of amazing tracker.

Again, Izuki mouthed, “How?” And again, Mitobe shrugged.

Koganei visually followed the trail of prints to a point off in the distance.  As he focused his eyes, they met the quiet look of disappointment on Mitobe’s face.

“Gah!” Koganei cried out. “I’m so sorry Mitobe! There is no way in hell I’m gonna lose—I do not want to practice DOUBLE footwork!”

With that, they turned heel and ran as Izuki gleefully yelled, “Let’s _rock_ and roll!”

“IZUKI, I’M GOING TO KILL YOU!” Hyuuga snarled, sprinting toward the vice captain. The aura emanating from Hyuuga was scary to say the least. In fact, he was taking it way too seriously…but that’s Hyuuga for you.

Hyuuga was steadily gaining on Izuki. Kiyoshi and Koganei, too, were closing in on Mitobe, coordinating their movements to box him in. The situation certainly was not in Team Robbers’ favor. Kuroko breathed in and then exhaled slowly, as he tended to do before doing something extraordinary. He emerged from his hiding spot and dashed toward Hyuuga. Kuroko caught up with relative ease, having conserved his energy. He stopped just out of reach before the figure in glasses realized what was happening.

“Where the hell did you come from?!” Hyuuga screeched.

“Hyuuga!” Kiyoshi shouted from further back. “Tag him!”

Hyuuga, who had been taken aback by the sudden materialization of Kuroko, came to his senses. He lunged forward, certain he had Kuroko. However, the aptly named phantom sixth man lived up to his namesake and seemed to…disappear and then reappear ten yards on the other side of Hyuuga.

Everyone gasped, even Izuki and Mitobe.

“Whoa! That was AWESOME!” Koganei said excitedly, breaking the stunned silence that fell over them having witnessed a feat of…well, they weren’t even sure.

“Izuki-senpai, Mitobe-senpai, please run.”

They didn’t need to be told twice. With Kuroko’s assistance, they made a successful escape. But drop their guard they did not—they remained alert since the three they left in the dust were still after them…and with a vengeance, or maybe that was just Hyuuga. Kuroko, too, managed to get away but was panting heavily.

“Kuroko, are you okay?” Izuki asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“That was pretty cool back there.”

Mitobe nodded in wholehearted agreement.

“It’s something I’ve been working on.” Kuroko said breathily, having exerted himself maybe a little too much.

“Well, thank you and keep it up! We were caught between _a rock and a hard place_.” Izuki said with a grin.

Kuroko smiled in his subdued manner and continued to jog through the woods.

* * *

“I’m mad at you, Kagami-kun,” the subject line of the email read.

_Ah shit._ Kagami thought, glancing over Kuroko’s words, _I didn’t tell anyone except the coach…_

“But I hope you arrived safely in America and are training hard with your master,” the first sentence stated.

“We have been training as well with the coach’s father, Aida-san. He has us under a strict training regimen, which includes running in the mountains for three hours of cops and robbers.”

_They’re playing kids’ games? The hell kinda training is that…_

“Despite how it sounds, it’s actually quite difficult, Kagami-kun.”

_Uhh…_

“Since we’re outside in the mountains, the ground is not as forgiving as a basketball court. The air is thinner too so we often are out of breath. A number of times, I nearly tripped—and I would have had my shoes not been on securely. I believe Aida-san wanted us to run to condition our muscles. We played four rounds total, with the loser having double practice. Naturally, we wanted to win. I was on a team with Izuki-senpai, Mitobe-senpai, Furihata-kun, and Fukuda-kun. The remaining members were on the team with Hyuuga-senpai.”

“For the first round, Hyuuga-senpai’s team of cops won two points. They caught Furihata-kun and Fukuda-kun. We tried to break them out of jail but to no avail. At least it wasn’t four points, as there was a point earlier in the round where Izuki-senpai and Mitobe-senpai were nearly caught. I was able to distract the other group long enough so they could make a run for it.”

_I wonder what he did? Probably just popped out of nowhere and scared the piss out of them is my guess._

“In the second round, we were cops. Mitobe-senpai and I ran solo, but coordinated to capture Koganei-senpai and Tsuchida-senpai. I believe Koganei-senpai commented on how it wasn’t fair for ‘the silent duo’ to creep up on him like that. Hyuuga-senpai did something remarkable too and distracted us by shooting a rock off in the distance—this allowed Kawahara-kun to get away from us. We had two points at the end of round two.”

“For the third round, Izuki-senpai was finally caught by Hyuuga-senpai. Mind you, Hyuuga-senpai had Izuki-senpai marked from the very beginning of the game and pursued him relentlessly. I imagine it may have been due to the puns about rocks that Izuki-senpai told throughout the day. (Funnily, Hyuuga-senpai guarded him in jail as well and had to endure more jokes.) They had one point at the end of this round, for a total of three.”

“Finally, we arrived at the fourth round. We had to capture at least one person to be tied. This round was actually quite exciting because there was a stand-off between all the second years across both teams. Izuki-senpai was amazing and was able to stand in the midst of what looked like chaos and reach out suddenly, to tag Koganei-senpai, but was unexpectedly intercepted by Kiyoshi-senpai who jumped in the way instead, getting himself captured. I suspect Kiyoshi-senpai recognized that Koganei-senpai was valuable to keep out of jail since he demonstrated some impressive skills earlier, such as determining where the opposition was through tracking shoe prints.”

_Our senpai are weird_ , Kagami had concluded from this.

“It turns out we were in fact tied at the end of three hours. Exhausted, though feeling rather content from the well-fought game, both teams collectively agreed to take on the double practice. Coach seemed to be touched by this and let us get away with one session of footwork, but she emphasized that we could absolutely in no way slack off otherwise she would change her mind right away.”

Kagami shivered a bit thinking about the footwork the coach oversaw.

“Between practice, eating, and sleeping, we haven’t had time for much else. But we’re all working diligently and have felt your absence. We miss you.”

His cheeks suddenly felt a little warmer. _Guuh…why do you write that embarrassing shit._

“Apologies for this long-winded email. I hope you’re doing well and are training hard, Kagami-kun. Please write when you have a moment and we’ll see you soon for the Winter Cup. Safe travels.”

For a man of few words, Kuroko certainly wrote lengthy messages.

“P.S. I’m still mad at you.”

This produced an audible laugh from Kagami. He hit the reply button and began to peck away at the keyboard, recounting everything that’s happened up till now—the jetlag, the food, the weather, the food, the basketball, the food…the basketball.


End file.
